


Ain't No Good Life

by aneurysmface



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Multi, that's why I didn't slap any warnings on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aneurysmface/pseuds/aneurysmface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times they almost kissed and 1 time they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from they Lynyrd Skynyrd song of the same name.

Jax is nineteen and the love of his life is leaving town to fly halfway across the country to pursue a life he doesn’t belong in.

His mother approves of Tara’s choice.

The club takes him out for drinks to take his mind off her, and Jax gets drunk. Bobby gets tipsy. Opie passes out on the glossy wood of the bar. Tig sits at a table in the corner and keeps on eye on everyone--Gemma’s orders.

When Jax tries to threaten the bartender into handing over the keys and leaving the bar in Jax’s well-intentioned hands, Tig stands up. He’s just in time to catch Jax as he sways backward and nearly falls on his ass.

“C’mon, Jax. Let’s get you home.” Tig tosses a tight, apologetic smile at the bartender as he slings Jax’s arm over his shoulders and lifts with his legs.

“Gonna take me home wi’ you, Tiggy?” Jax slurs his words so badly that Tig can barely understand him.

“If that’s where you want to sleep. Ain’t much for ‘home’, though.” Tig says as he pours Jax into the passenger seat of his own truck. He leans into Jax, patting down the multitude of pockets--and really, who needs that many pockets anyway-- to find Jax’s keys.

“Takin’ ‘vantage a me?” Jax’s eyes are mostly closed, and Tig freezes, glad that his hand has finally found what they’re looking for.

“Nah, Jaxy, you know I’m not like that.” Tig would swear Jax mumbles “too bad” in reply, but he ignores it, buckling Jax in instead and walking around to the driver’s side. He hops in and starts the truck, guns it out of the lot and toward his place--a place that is blissfully free of anything Tara-related.

Somehow, Tig gets Jax inside and into bed--and Tig is really trying to remember the last time he changed his sheets--when Jax grabs his wrist as he’s pulling back.

“Jax…” he starts, unsure of how to finish in the face of the scrutinizing stare Jax has him fixed in.

“Just…. you got nice eyes, Tig. Blue. Not like Tara’s.”

“Get some sleep, Jax. You’re gonna hate yourself in the morning enough as it is.” Tig gently pries Jax’s fingers loose.

“You won’t leave, right? The club won’t leave me, too?”

Tig feels something shift where his heart should be at those words, at the sight of this baby-faced 19-year-old kid so alone in the world that’s he’s taking comfort in the idea of being surrounded by criminals. “Nah, kid, you’re stuck with us.” He says, leaning down to press a kiss to Jax’s forehead.

“Now get some sleep.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jax is twenty-one and in Vegas.

He’s with Opie and Chibs and Tig, celebrating a meaningless milestone. Jax has been drinking and gambling since he was a kid, being able to do it now is no different. But he tells the club he just wants to see what it’s like to do something the legal way, so they’re here drinking and throwing dice and picking up women. Opie gets lost around the third casino. Chibs takes off with a pair of girls who like his scars at the fifth. By two in the morning, Tig and Jax are arguing over the same girl and the seventh stop of the night.

She just smiles at them and says there’s no need to fight--she’s sure she can handle them both.

So they take her up to a suite they book on the spot and in cash out of the pile they’ve won so far. Jax leans back against the door once it shuts and she leans into him, hands roaming down his chest and inside his vest while Tig’s nimble fingers undo the buttons on her blouse.

She’s gone in the morning when Jax and Tig blink themselves awake to find their legs tangle together and on vague patches of memory. Jax is silent, but Tig snaps the mood by turning to him and grinning, “So was it good for you, too, babe?”

Jax tries to keep from smiling, but he can’t. He laughs as he rolls out of the massive bed and toward the shower.

In the mirror, he catches sight of a hickey that’s too vibrant and rough--complete with accompanying set of teeth marks--to have come from the girl. She was all gentle touches and soft whimpers. He presses his fingers to it, his eyes sliding shut as he shivers.


	3. Chapter 3

3\. Jax is twenty-six and covered in blood--some his, some Mayan--when Tig pulls back the piece of metal Jax had hidden behind after he’d dropped the grenade in a last-ditch effort at winning the fight he’d found himself in.

“Oh, thank fucking Christ, you’re alive.” Tig reaches out and pulls Jax into a standing position, holding him steady with one hand and cataloguing his injuries with the other. When he’s satisfied that Jax has no major wounds, he pull Jax into a tight hug and presses a kiss to his temple.

“No more fuckin’ grenades, Jax.” He says, voice rough in Jax’s ear.

Jax just nods numbly.


	4. Chapter 4

Jax is about to turn twenty-nine when he has an absolute blow-out of a fight with Gemma. He storms out of the house, intent on starting a fight to blow off steam, but she knows what he’s up to, like always. Tig tracks him down before he even gets within a mile of Nord territory, forces his bike off the road near a turn-off to a Sons safehouse in the woods. Tig throws his helmet on the ground at Jax’s feet, storms over with fire in his eyes and Jax is still climbing off his bike.

“What the hell are you thinking?” Tig yells, getting in Jax’s space, their noses a hair’s breadth apart, “Your ma calls, worried sick about you, and I find you riding off toward Nazi territory?”

Jax shoves Tig backward, “Stay out of this, Tig. It’s not your business.”

“The hell it ain’t! You’re the goddamn best of us, Jax. You keep this club together and if you get yourself killed doing something stupid, Gemma’s gonna lose it.”

“So what? The club will still go on, you’ll all be fine.”

Jax moves like he means to get back on his bike, but Tig grabs his shoulder and spins him around instead. Jax uses the momentum to throw a haymaker that catches Tig in the cheek, just below his eye. Tig doubles over, but before Jax can retreat, Tig is tackling him to the ground and Jax’s head is bouncing off a rock. He only blacks out for a second, but when he wakes up, Tig is straddling his legs with his knife at Jax’s throat.

“You want a fight, fight me. ‘S what I’m here for, but don’t go getting yourself killed over this.”

“Tig…” Jax starts, trying to make it sound like a threat, but failing when the sound of his own voice makes him want to vomit.

“No, Jax, you don’t get it.” Tig swings his arm and buries the knife in the ground next to Jax’s ear, “you’re everybody’s favorite--and you’re the best hope we’ve got at keeping the club alive once Clay bites it. You’re smart and you know how to lead. Us? We’re all just soldiers. I’m too impulsive, Chibs is too hot-headed, Opie is too nice, and Juice is just flat-out too stupid. But you, you’re it, man.”

“Tig…” Jax says again, his muscles relaxing.

Tig just drops his forehead to Jax’s, “Next time, at least take somebody to watch your back.”

Jax can smell the wine on Tig’s breath from here, knows that Tig only drinks wine with women he’s planning on fucking, and knows he interrupted Tig’s ideas for how the night was going to go. Tig, as if he can read Jax’s mind, pulls back and stands up, holding out a hand.

“C’mon, then. Let’s hit the house. I’ll clean your head out and you can take another swing at me if you want.

Jax takes the hand.


	5. Chapter 5

Jax is named Vice President at thirty and they’re celebrating when someone starts snapping pictures of the party. Most of the photos are in an album behind the clubhouse bar, something Gemma put together, but one is tucked away behind a false back panel in the top drawer of Jax’s dresser. He’s in the middle of raising a bottle of Jack to his lips, a smile on his face and his left arm slung across Tig’s shoulders. Tig is leaning in close, his lips pressed to Jax’s cheek and his eyes crinkled in a rare, genuine smile.

It’s a good thing Jax was the one who took the photos to be developed--he’d never have heard the end of it if anyone else knew that photo existed. Hell, they’d probably hang it over the bar and mock him every chance they got.


	6. +1

Jax is thirty-three when a rogue group of Mayans storm into the garage while he and Tig are packing it up for the night. It’s family dinner at Gemma’s, so everyone else is already gone. They’re just squaring away the tool kits and securing the doors now.

Tig shoves him out of the way and takes the bullet himself. Jax doesn’t miss a shot when he fires back, his eyes gone uncharacteristically cold.

Before he even checks the bodies, he crawls over to Tig, who’s pressing a hand to his side, blood seeping from between his fingers.

“Well, that stung a bit.” Tig quips, a tight smile on his face.

“You’re an idiot, Tigger.” Jax pries Tig’s hand away from the wound, pulls back the leather and Tig’s shirt. The bullet left behind a clean graze, thankfully. Jax breathes a sigh of relief and drops his head to Tig’s chest.

Tig’s not-so-bloody hand slides up into Jax’s hair and pulls until Jax is looking him in the eye. This is the most serious Jax has ever seen Tig look.

“It’s not idiotic if it saved your life.” Tig’s eyes hold Jax’s, unwavering, and something snaps inside Jax’s chest. Before he knows what he’s doing, Jax is leaning in and kissing Tig messily. For a moment, he’s worried Tig is going to pull out his own gun and shoot Jax then and there.

Instead, Tig’s hand tightens its grip on Jax’s hair and his tongue finds its way into Jax’s mouth.

They’re forty minutes and six missed calls late to dinner.


End file.
